


in this dream I'm wide awake

by McSpot



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Vancouver Canucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 07:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18405668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McSpot/pseuds/McSpot
Summary: Troy had this manner about him that made him just...naturally forgettable.  People’s eyes skimmed past him like he was part of the scenery, and Troy acted the part, always standing at the edge of the group, the corner of the room, like at any moment he would just be absorbed into the background.But that first day of development camp, Brock just saw Troy, this small, pale kid lingering in the corner of the dressing room, staring blankly at the floor while picking listlessly at the hem of his jersey.“Hey, I’m Brock. This your first camp?”“Yeah.  I’m Troy.  Troy Stecher.  It’s nice to meet you.”Troy’s hand was frigid against his own, a shock sliding like melting ice against his soul.





	in this dream I'm wide awake

**Author's Note:**

> Someone on Tumblr remarked to me that Troy was so pale that he looked like a vampire, and while I don't usually care for vampire fics, I really, really love ghosts. This happened. This plays with timelines a little; Troy's first season in the NHL was the 2016-17 season, while this takes place beginning in 2017-18, Brock's first full year with the Canucks.
> 
> I have written some sad stories in my time but I am sincere when I say this is the saddest thing I have ever written. Consider that your warning. Things go downhill and they don't get better. It's rough. Also unedited, but this is me so what else are we expecting.
> 
> Title from "Save Today" by Seether. @my-hockey-obsession2 on Tumblr made [an amazing cover](https://my-hockey-obsession2.tumblr.com/post/184100394746/in-this-dream-im-wide-awake-by-mcspot-aka) for this fic!

Brock met Troy on the first day of development camp in 2017. After two prior development camps and nine games with the Canucks at the end of the past season, Brock felt like he had a pretty good handle on Vancouver's system. He knew the staff, he knew what he had to do to get a permanent roster spot instead of bouncing between Vancouver and Utica like half of the familiar faces in the room.

He knew the other players.

But he'd never met Troy before.

Maybe it was because he was unmemorable. Troy had this manner about him that made him just...naturally forgettable. People's eyes skimmed past him like he was part of the scenery, and Troy acted the part, always standing at the edge of the group, the corner of the room, like at any moment he would just be absorbed into the background.

Looking at him, it was hard to understand how anyone ever missed him. True, he was definitely a smaller guy, a couple inches shorter than Brock. But he was pale, stunningly so, the bright white overhead lights giving his skin an almost pearlescent glow.

Later, it would make more sense that a hockey player who spent his whole life in Vancouver's overcast climate wouldn't get a lot of sun. And Brock would still chirp him for it mercilessly, because he liked to get Troy to make that bitchy sneer of his, usually followed by some sort of crack about Brock's cartoonishly large head.

But that first day of development camp, Brock just saw Troy, this small, pale kid lingering in the corner of the dressing room, staring blankly at the floor while picking listlessly at the hem of his jersey.

Brock knew what someone looked like when they felt like they didn't fit in. And he knew just how to deal with it.

He put on his best smile, the one that got the most Instagram likes, and came over with his hand already outstretched.

"Hey, I'm Brock. This your first camp?"

The boy had startled, blinking sleepily as if drawn slowly out of a daze by the hand being thrust towards him. He stared at Brock's hand for a beat too long, and then laboriously dragged his gaze up Brock's arm to his face.

His eyes were blue, or maybe grey. They looked washed out like the rest of him, hazed and murky. But when they settled on Brock's face he felt like he could see the life seep back into them, warming by degrees, and his smile grew into something solid and real, no longer so tentative and confused.

"Yeah. I'm Troy. Troy Stecher. It's nice to meet you."

Troy's hand was frigid against his own, a shock sliding like melting ice against his soul.

But after a moment it had settled into something comfortable and familiar. Troy smiled like they'd been friends for years.

Brock smiled back. Maybe they could be.

Maybe they had been.

"Welcome to Vancouver, Troy."

Troy squeezed his hand.

The ice in Brock's soul shivered happily.

~~~

Brock and Troy got along like a house on fire, mainly because they spoke a mutual language of constant, detailed personal insults. Troy had this quiet kind of sarcasm that nobody ever gave him enough credit for, but once Brock started paying attention he was hard-pressed not to make an ass of himself laughing while the coaches were talking.

Of course he couldn't actually laugh; he couldn't give Troy the satisfaction of knowing Brock thought he was funny.

In return he would tell Troy that he had the resting bitch face of an angry white lady about to call customer service, and Troy would duck down to tie his skates like Brock couldn't see him laughing.

Troy was a local, which provided Brock with plenty of chirping material about living with his parents and riding his bike to the arena every day.

"Some of us just like to make healthy choices," Troy would say, checking Brock roughly into the boards.

"If you were healthier, you wouldn't look like a fucking vampire!" Brock would call after him.

Troy just laughed.

They were attached at the hip for those few short days, just as all the guys were when the team had the scheduled to the gills with practices and appearances and scrimmages and seminars.

At the end of camp, Brock pulled Troy into a hug. It was a little sweaty, right after their Top Prospects game, but Troy always ran cool so it didn't feel too awful. "You better get yourself a contract, man," Brock said, clapping him on the back. "I plan to be up here all next season, and I'm gonna need you backing me up."

Troy pulled away with a small, knowing smile. "I'll be here."

And come September, he was.

Of course, Troy got along with the boys too. He did his lingering in the background thing at first, which Brock told him early and often was fucking stupid, because it wasn't like Troy was shy.

Troy shrugged and rolled his eyes. "Maybe unlike you, I can handle not being the center of attention all the time."

But he let Brock guide him around with a hand on his back, introduce him to Bo and Jake and Ben. Maybe he'd actually heeded some of Brock's advice and caught some sun the past few months, because he didn't look quite as pasty and translucent as usual.

"Man, where the fuck have you been?" Hutty groused after their first practice together. "I could have used you last year."

Brock wasn't looking at them, but he could hear the smug smirk in Troy's voice when he said, "Around."

Jake and Troy bonded over being local boys, exchanging notes about their old schools and teams, growing up Canucks fans. Everyone ganged up on Brock for being an American, and Brock realized for the umpteenth time that this team needed more damn Americans in this locker room because he was pretty sure he was literally the only one.

"We probably need less Europeans," he said loudly as he skated up to Sven at practice. Sven narrowed his eyes and smacked him on the ass with his stick, but Brock counted it as a victory.

It was Brock who suggested that he and Troy got a place together, once it became clear that they were both staying up for the duration. "I know your parents' place is a sure thing, bud, but you need to branch out a bit," Brock told him.

He couldn't quite read the look on Troy's face, which was a little strange, because he knew all of Troy's bitchy looks by now. This one wasn't bitchy though, lost somewhere between confused and astounded behind those washed out eyes. His skin took on that sickly greyish quality it normally only got under fluorescent lights, the one that made him look unwell.

Troy swallowed visibly, dropping his gaze. "My dog is at my parents' place."

With how often he talked about his Bernese Mountain Dog, Brock was kind of surprised they hadn't met her yet. "Yes, well, we can get a place that allows dogs. Are you in?"

Troy ended up deciding Phoebe was better off at his parents' place with a yard to run around in, but he was in.

He was one of the more considerate roommates that Brock had ever had. Troy was polite, kept things clean. He didn't make a lot of noise or keep Brock up at night, and it was cool to have someone on hand to hang out with or go for a run together.

The apartment itself had a few issues that Brock could have lived without. The electricity was a little faulty, and the lights flickered sometimes and it was always freezing, no matter how much Brock turned up the heat. There was a permanent draft curling around his ankles, uncomfortable even in the lingering heat of summer. It was bizarre for a building that was allegedly pretty new, and no matter how many times the maintenance guys came out to look at it, they couldn't find anything wrong.

"How are you not cold?" Brock asked Troy as he tugged a hoodie over his head and propped the window open because he actually wanted to let more warm air in for once. "You're always cold, you should be like, catatonic right now."

Troy smirked and shrugged, not looking up from his phone. "I don't know man, I don't notice it like you do. It doesn't bug me. Maybe you're just sensitive."

Brock had never been more offended in his life.

Aside from that, everything was pretty normal. They hung out, they played hockey, they travelled around.

Brock tore up the league and did his best to take the team along with him.

He was in his rookie year, playing on lines with Daniel and Henrik  _Sedin_  and matching them in points. Brock was Rookie of the Month for both November and December, and then he got invited to the All Star Game.

It was a breathless whirlwind that came slamming to a halt when he collided with Cal Clutterbuck in March and fucked up his back.

The worst of it was that when he saw the video later, it didn't even look like much. A routine check, but his body twisted oddly on the way down and then he was missing the rest of the season rehabbing it.

"Probably four to six weeks," the trainers told him regretfully.

Brock grimaced. The team wasn't going to make the playoffs at this rate, and his chances at the Calder had pretty much just tanked. While of course he was more interested in the former, he couldn't say that he hadn't wanted to get the Calder while getting his team to the playoffs.

Instead he had neither, and his back certainly took a hell of a lot longer than four to six weeks to heal.

"I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me," Brock groaned at Troy, stretching carefully over the couch. He would have flown home to Minnesota to see his family by now, but it wasn't worth four hours trapped on a plane fucking up his back all over again.

He just felt exhausted all the time, and he couldn't even blame the physical therapy because he was tired before PT even started. The last time he'd FaceTimed his mom she'd told him he looked a little pale, and he knew it was probably because he wasn't getting out as much as usual but he still couldn't help staring into the mirror every morning asking himself why he felt like he'd been hit by a truck when he should be almost completely better by now.

Troy frowned over at him from the armchair he perched on. "Did you talk to the doctors again? Maybe you're coming down with something else?"

But Brock was already shaking his head. "No, they said all my tests are normal. I'm just healing up slower than they expected. They keep telling me to like, get more Vitamin C and rest up."

He shouldn't have been surprised when Troy made him drink an entire glass of orange juice while he supervised.

The only silver lining was Brock got to tell Troy that he looked more like an irritated soccer mom than ever before, and then  _Troy_  was so offended that he wouldn't even talk to Brock again until dinner.

Time went on, and Brock did eventually start to feel better. He would forever insist that there was clearly something magical about Minnesota, because as soon as he went home he started to feel better than he had in months.

By the time August came around and he returned to Vancouver, he was in the best shape of his life.

The apartment was fucking  _boiling_  when he got back, air so hot and thick he could have cut it with a knife and choked on it.

"Stech?" he called out, dumping his bags just inside the door and immediately beelining to the windows. The blinds were closed, but it did nothing to keep the heat out. "Dude, what the fuck, it's like a million degrees in here!"

He pried the window open; it stuck a little, like it probably hadn't been opened in a while, but eventually gave way. For the first time in probably the entire time they'd had the apartment, the weather outside was actually cooler than the inside of the apartment, and the breeze was an immediate relief.

When he turned around, Troy was just coming out of his room. "Huh? Oh, hey man. You really think it's that bad?"

He rubbed the back of his neck, looking entirely unbothered by the heat even though he was wearing sweatpants.

Brock made a disgusted noise and went to prod at the thermostat, which cheerfully told him all systems were turned off. "It's disgusting in here, it's so stuffy. Oh my God, did you like, never have the air running at all?"

Troy came up behind him, peering at the thermostat over his shoulder. When his arm brushed Brock's, he was cold, as per usual. God, he'd probably never even notice if it was hot because he'd finally be experiencing temperature like a normal person.

When he turned to scowl at Troy, Troy just shrugged. "I don't know, didn't bother me."

"Of course it didn't." He looked Troy up and down and frowned even more. "Fuck, man, did you forget how to go outside again? You look like shit."

Troy was that same gross-pale shade he'd been back when they first met last summer. His skin had that thin, purplish, waxy look to it that Brock would compare to a corpse if it wasn't a bit too mean. Troy was always going to be pale, it was just the kind of skin type he had, but he looked particularly sickly this time. Thin, fragile, like his skin was stretched too far over his bones and had grown translucent from it. Even in the golden light from the afternoon sun, he was starkly white.

He looked washed out again, that faded look to his eyes, like an old photograph that hadn't been developed properly.

Fuck, maybe Troy needed to see the doctors this time.

Troy just damnably shrugged again, but he was a little testy about it, the way he always was when Brock pointed out his appearance. He should probably be a better friend and stop doing that, but he couldn't deny that it was concerning.

"Shut up, I go outside. I go hang out with Phoebe and take her for runs all the time. It's not my fault I know how to use sunscreen."

Brock wanted to push the matter. But Troy was getting that pinched look around his eyes that said he was hurt and didn't want to say it, and Brock knew he had to back off.

Well, he was back in town now. He'd make sure Troy got three meals a day and plenty of walks, and the trainers would see to the rest soon enough.

He was feeling pretty smug about himself by the start of camp, because Troy was already starting to get a little color back to him, like a flower perking up under his tender loving attention and orders to, "Shut up and eat, bitch."

Camp was camp. It was just like last year, except with the glaring absence of a set of Swedish twins. Brock kept catching himself looking over at Hank and Danny's old stalls and frowning when he didn't see their names there. He knew he wasn't the only one, because Eagle was steadfastly  _not_  looking in that direction, and Stech kept making that confused little squint like something was wrong but he didn't know why he thought something was wrong.

At least they had Captain Bo to get them through.

"I'm not the captain," Bo said for what was probably the fifth time that morning, and they hadn't even begun the physicals yet.

"Because they're saving the announcement for later," Hutty added, lovingly shoving him into a wall as he passed by.

" _No_ , because they didn't ask me."

Jake nodded agreeably. "Because they're announcing it on opening night?"

Bo scowled at them all, but Brock would bet that the flush on his cheeks was from more than just exertion.

One notable addition to the team that year was Elias Pettersson. Brock had met Petey in development camp last year, but this would be his first time actually playing with the team. So far he'd been pretty quiet, sitting back and following everything with sharp eyes. It was kind of funny how the older Swedes had started doting on him, Marky and Eds circling like clucking mother hens, always checking in and having muttered conversations in Swedish.

It was, to be fair, exactly what the twins would be doing if they were there. They'd probably be proud to see it.

Well, Brock figured, it wouldn't be his first time welcoming a new kid into the fold.

"Hey man, good to see you." Elias did smile when Brock approached him, letting Brock pull him in for a back-clapping bro hug. "C'mon, come see where the cool kids hang out. And Virts and Hutty."

"Is that what you're calling yourselves now?" Suttsy chirped, while both Jake and Ben immediately started protesting.

Brock patted Elias on the shoulder firmly. "What can I say, game recognizes game."

He led Elias over to the boys with a firm hand on his shoulder. "Petey, this is Bo, he's your captain. Those clowns are Jake and Ben, and resting bitch face here is Troy Stecher."

Brock had played with enough non-native English speakers to know what a guy looked like when they were translating words in their head, but Elias looked like he had a full record-scratching stop when his eyes settled on Troy. He startled like a baby deer, eyes wide like he hadn't noticed Troy standing literally three feet away from him.

"Who are you?" He looked baffled.

"You remember Stech, we all met at camp last summer," Brock prompted.

Based on the look on Elias's face and the way he was shaking his head, he clearly did not remember, and found there to be something very unsettling about that.

The boys, on the other hand, thought it was hilarious.

"Wow, Stech, way to make a show of yourself," Jake said, elbowing him in the ribs.

"Wait, wait," Hutty interjected, "Do you remember a Tony Stretcher?"

That one set the boys going, even as Troy groaned and rolled his eyes good naturedly.

By the time the boys explained the Tony Stretcher backstory, Elias had started to relax a little bit, the unease draining from his face.

Brock wouldn't recall it for months, but Elias never did actually say that he remembered Troy.

~~~

Petey was amazing, putting on an absolute clinic and making an early bid for the Calder before October was finished.

Brock, on the other hand, pulled his groin two weeks into the season. It was irritating but manageable, and he wasn't going to let it keep him from playing. Not when he and Elias were paying so well together.

Not when he'd already missed so many games last season due to injury.

He and Petey combined for two goals apiece in a win against the Avs at the start of November, and instead of going out after the game to celebrate, Brock instead found himself at home on the couch holding an ice pack far closer to his nuts than he'd ever hoped to need one.

Troy was curled up in the armchair watching him again, wincing and squirming like he was barely resisting covering his own crotch to protect it. "Dude, you need to talk to one of the trainers. This is really bad."

"I'm fine," Brock immediately dismissed. He was totally fine. As long as he didn't move at all, he was perfectly, one hundred percent  _fine_.

He wasn't so fine when he missed their next two games and got sent home from their road trip to get evaluated by the doctors in Vancouver. Troy, thankfully, did not send him off with an  _I told you so_.

Injured reserve was just as dull as Brock remembered it to be, made worse by the team being away on a road trip for the next week while Brock was stuck at home.

He took a picture of himself lying on the couch, wearing his most pathetic expression, and sent it to the boys.

_Someone needs to come home and take care of me._

_That sounds like a personal problem_ , Petey sent.

Really, it was Brock's fault for thinking he could elicit sympathy from his teammates in the first place. He knew better.

The days crawled by impossibly slowly; the most excitement that Brock got was going to do physical therapy, which was exactly as fun as sticking his dick in a toaster, but with hopefully better results.

He wouldn't say that he was excited to have the team come back, but he did pretty much try to jump off the couch to hug Troy when he woke up and saw Troy back in his armchair.

"Dude, stop," Troy grumbled. "You're going to hurt yourself again."

His hands were cold through Brock's shirt when Troy pushed him firmly back onto the couch. "This is what I get for being happy to see you?"

Troy rolled his eyes. "This is what  _I_  get for trying to keep you from breaking yourself again. You have absolutely no chill."

Brock sputtered. Totally not cool for Troy to call him out like that, that's what they had Hutty for.

"Yeah, well, your hands are cold."

He wasn't really surprised that Troy didn't honor that with a reply.

At least the next day was a little bit better. The team had practice, and even if Brock wasn't participating, he could still talk to someone other than the physical therapist. Even if he'd shortly regret that because most of his teammates were either making jokes about his groin, or far too genuinely concerned for the health of his groin.

Hank and Danny were around to talk with the front office about some sort of promotional deal, which meant they stopped off in the room to say hello to everyone. Part of Brock still thrilled a little bit when he remembered that he'd actually gotten to play on a line with Daniel and Henrik Sedin, even when he knew that they were pretty much the textbook definition of dorky dads off the ice.

"How are you feeling?" Danny asked, putting a hand on Brock's shoulder. Brock was sitting in his own stall, even if he wasn't dressing for practice, just so he could chat with the boys for a bit.

He sighed. "Fine, I guess. They're saying at least another week, maybe two."

Danny made a sympathetic noise, squeezed his shoulder. "I know it's a lot, but it's better to get it healed up right the first time than to go back too early and make it worse."

Which, of course he knew that, but it still fucking  _sucked_  when he'd already missed so many games due to injury and he'd only just started his second season. "Yeah, I know. That's what Troy keeps saying."

He flinched when Danny's fingers dug in hard, nails biting through his shirt into the meat of his shoulder. Almost immediately Danny was rubbing his hand apologetically over Brock's shoulder. But when Brock looked up at him, there was a strange look in his eyes, and an even stranger tone in his voice when he asked, "I'm sorry, who?"

Naturally missing the memo that something was a little off, Hutty shoved his way in and said, "Yeah, Stech has been a good nursemaid for you, eh, Brock?"

Brock snorted and rolled his eyes. "Not good enough if he abandoned me for a week."

He said it loud enough for Troy to hear it where he stood across the room talking to Petey and Jake; Troy flipped him off over his shoulder without bothering to look back at him.

But when he glanced back at Danny, his face had gone pale. Not Troy-pale, maybe, but he'd lost that vague semblance of a tan that he and Henrik had finally picked up now that they didn't spend all their time indoors playing hockey.

"Who are you talking about?" he asked in a low voice. His eyes were intense in a way that Brock had never seen before, a little wild but so firmly focused. It was enough to make Brock squirm a little uncomfortably.

"Uh, Troy?"

"I'm gonna tell him Danny forgot him," Ben laughed, shaking his head. "Only one year and he's out."

Brock startled when Danny moved to stand directly in front of him, hands on either shoulder drawing his attention back to Danny's face.

He'd never seen one of the twins look scared before. It was like seeing your parents get upset, a sign to some part of your animal brain that things were truly, horribly wrong.

"Troy  _who_? Who is Troy, Brock?"

Part of him wanted to shy away from the way Daniel looked, nearly frenetic, body tense. "Troy Stecher? Our teammate?"

At the same time, Ben said, "Uh, Troy? On defense? He's right over there, man, you know him."

Danny whipped around hard enough to give himself whiplash, eyes scanning the room. "Where?"

"Uh, Danny, are you feeling okay? This is a little weird-"

" _Where is he?"_

Brock jumped. He'd never heard Daniel that furious. Never.

His heart started pounding, picking up on the tension in the air. "Talking to Petey and Tuna, right over there."

Daniel's gaze snapped over to Elias and Jake, his eyes narrowing. "There's nobody talking to Petey."

Okay, this was officially freaky.

Troy's back was to them, but Elias could see them all staring. He raised his eyebrows in question; Brock shrugged helplessly.

"Danny, maybe we should talk to one of the doctors-" Ben started to say; Danny stopped him with a hand on the wrist.

"Ben," he said slowly, quietly. "I need you to be very serious with me right now."

It was a testament to how freaked out Ben must have been that he nodded quickly and didn't make a smartass remark.

"I need you to tell me if you see Troy Stecher over there right now."

Ben's eyes flitted around the room, like a cornered rabbit looking for escape. "Uh, yeah?"

Danny closed his eyes for just a moment, breathing deeply through his nose. "And how long have you known Troy?"

Over Danny's shoulder, Ben exchanged a wide-eyed look with Brock. It felt like the temperature in the room had just dropped ten degrees, but they were the only ones who knew it.

"Since he came to the team, we were at camp together," Brock said, keeping his voice low. "Danny, what the fuck is going on? You know that stuff."

Everyone always talked about the dangers of concussions and hockey, and Danny had struggled with them before. It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility if it affected his memory, but Brock had never heard of concussions doing  _this_.

Danny swore harshly under his breath.

By now they'd started to draw a bit of attention; Eagle was sending them concerned looks, and Henrik was making his way over.

"Hey, what's going on?" he asked quietly, eyes flitting over the three of them, but coming to rest on Daniel.

Brock would probably never fully understand that weird twin connection that the Sedins had, but he knew there was a conversation going on that he was entirely missing when Daniel looked at Henrik and said, "The boys were telling me about their teammate, Troy Stecher."

Henrik's eyes went wide.

"Oh, fuck."

And then, "We need to call Trevor."

Brock didn't know what Trevor Linden had to do with anything, but evidently Trevor Linden knew, because in short order Henrik was telling them that they had to meet him at the park near the arena.

"Who knows Troy?" Henrik asked them. His eyes had that same frantic look that Daniel's did, and it was putting Brock more than a little on edge.

"Everyone? He's our teammate. Look, let me go get him-"

"Not yet," Henrik interrupted. "You're not ready for that yet. We need to talk first. Look, who hangs out with Troy? Who do you guys spend time with? I know it's you, Ben, Elias – who else is involved?"

"What do you mean?" Ben asked.

Brock was too busy looking around the room, trying to figure out where Troy had gotten off to. He wasn't with Petey anymore, but he was maybe with a trainer. Fuck, they should just get Troy in here to settle whatever the fuck this was, and then get the twins MRIs or something because clearly something was going incredibly wrong with them.

Hank shook his head. He was quiet for a moment, jaw tight, and then turned to the rest of the guys in the room, most still putting their street clothes back on.

"Who here knows who Troy Stecher is?"

There was a momentary pause. Brock waited for the jokes about Hank getting old and losing his memory, the cracks about Tony Stretcher.

Nothing.

Wide eyes, confused faces.

"Who's that?" Alex asked.

Brock nearly choked on his tongue.

Troy fucking  _loved_  Alex Edler, like thought the light of all Vancouver defense shined out of his ass. He was always talking about how much he learned from Alex, how much respect he had for him-

Brock was glad he wasn't here to see the bewildered look on Eagle's face. He'd just die.

Thankfully everyone hadn't lost their minds, because Bo was looking at Eagle like maybe they could get a three-for-one discount on MRIs and send him in with the twins. "Uh, Stech? Your teammate?"

But Alex was shaking his head again, looking thoroughly confused, and Tanny leaned over and said, "I thought Stech was some weird name you guys had for Hutty?"

"Is it Hutty?" Rouss asked, "I thought maybe that was Sven."

Sven made a face. "Not me. Isn't it Suttsy? It sounds a little similar."

Brock watched them all compare notes with a pit of dread growing in his stomach. The only thing that made it tolerable was that Bo was giving him the same confused, helpless look.

He wasn't alone in this.

The boys were all talking now, muttering amongst themselves, but the twins were busy rounding up Elias, Jake, and Bo, bringing them over to where Brock and Ben were.

"You five are the only ones who know Troy?" Henrik asked.

Brock shook his head. He could feel a headache coming on, and this certainly wasn't helping anything. "We all know Troy, because he's our teammate! He's played here just as long as I have!"

He squirmed under Henrik's gaze when it zeroed in on him. "Did you meet him in camp?"

"What?"

"In development camp last summer," Henrik repeated in that same low, tense voice. "He was probably in the corner, looked sad or alone. Did you talk to him?"

"Dude, I don't remember-"

"You need to remember!" Henrik didn't shout, but Brock almost wished he had. He wasn't the only one who jumped at his voice.

He grimaced and tried to think back to that camp. It was hazy now, over a year ago, and the past year had been full of camps and training and practice and  _actual NHL games_ , and his second development camp wasn't much more than a distant memory.

Hank's hand landed on his shoulder, drawing him back to reality. He leaned down so that his eyes were level with Brock's. They were blue, and they were scared.

"Brock, this is important. I need you to remember what happened."

"I..."

Troy was pale. He remembered that. Troy was always pale, but he'd looked so thin back then. Not just skinny, but – insubstantial? So easy for people to look past him. He'd grown in leaps and bounds since Brock had known him, opened up and gained confidence in himself, in his game.

But back when Brock had first seen Troy, Troy had seemed very small, and very pale.

"I did meet him at camp," he finally said.

Henrik sighed and stood up straight. He leaned back on his heels, rubbed a hand over his face. "You introduced him to everyone else, then." It wasn't a question.

"Uh..."

"I don't remember him from that camp," Elias said quietly.

Everyone's attention turned to him.

Elias grimaced.

"I forgot. Or...I don't know. I didn't think about it. But when you said to focus...I don't remember him. And..." His face twisted up in concentration, eyes squinted like he was trying to read something far away. "I studied last year's roster, before I came here. I knew everyone on the team. He wasn't on the team."

He glared at Henrik accusingly. "Why did I forget that?" he demanded.

Brock would never understand the look Henrik gave to Daniel, but afterwards they both sighed.

"The park," Henrik said firmly. "Trevor will explain. But we need to go somewhere public, somewhere we won't be watched but we won't be affiliated with the team."

"We could just go to my apartment and  _talk_  to Troy," Brock suggested.

If the way the twins looked at each other was weird, having them both turn to watch at him with those matching, intense stares was more than a little intimidating.

"You see him at your apartment?" Danny asked in a tight, clipped voice.

Brock frowned. "He's my roommate."

He didn't know what Daniel muttered in Swedish, but from the look on Petey's face, it wasn't anything good.

"You took him home with you," Daniel said, dragging a hand over his face, covering his mouth. "That's why you keep getting hurt, you  _invited_  him home with you."

Hank's hand was back on Brock's shoulder, urging him to stand. "Definitely not your apartment then. Come on, Trevor will be waiting. He'll explain it."

Brock let himself be coaxed to his feet. He looked over at Bo, just as much his captain as Hank at this point; Bo shrugged. "Can't hurt," he said to Brock.

Well, fuck it. They were going to the park.

While Brock had met Trevor Linden before – the guy had been their president of hockey ops last year after all – he wasn't used to seeing him lounging around on top of a picnic table wearing jeans and a hoodie, hat pulled low over his eyes. He had a backpack with him, sitting on the table. The whole thing was bizarre and more than a little ominous.

"This is everyone?" he asked the twins; Hank nodded.

"It's like they're going to take us out back and shoot us," Ben whispered in Brock's ear.

Bo, by far the bravest of them, stepped forward. "Can you tell us what's going on now? Why did we have to come all the way out here?"

The twins did another of their weird stares, but this time they included Trevor in it; that just made it weirder.

Finally Trevor nodded at the twins and gestured for everyone to sit down. "C'mon, take a seat. You'll want to be sitting down for this."

Like little kids they were all lined up on the picnic bench together, Brock on the end so that he didn't have to try to straddle the bench at any point and jack up his groin again.

Trevor and the Sedins sat on the other side, increasing that feeling of being dragged down to the principal's office with your friends.

"You five all know who Troy Stecher is?" Trevor asked.

They all nodded.

"Okay." Trevor nodded too, folded his hands in front of himself. "Boys, there's no easy way to tell you this so I'm just going to come right out and say it: Troy Stecher is dead."

Brock actually laughed. Like full-body chuckled, and Ben was doing the same at his side. He didn't know why; it wasn't a particularly funny joke. Actually it was a horrible thing to say. But the whole situation was absurd, and the way everyone had been acting was absurd.

"Did he put you up to this or something?" Brock asked. It would explain why Troy had upped and disappeared right as Henrik and Daniel were shanghaiing them to the park. He didn't now how they'd get the twins to agree to something like this, or Trevor, but there had to be someone filming to get their reaction. He didn't see any cameras, but hidden cameras were pretty small nowadays.

When he looked over at the boys, Elias's face was blank, per usual, but Jake looked confused, and Bo was frowning. "That's not funny," Bo said to Trevor. "Don't say shit like that."

Trevor raised his eyebrows. "Bo, you've known me for a few years now. Do you think this is something I would joke about?"

Brock had only known Trevor for a year and even he knew that answer: no, no he would not.

Hesitantly, Bo shook his head; Trevor sighed.

"Exactly. Look, I wouldn't believe me either. I didn't believe it when someone told me, and the twins didn't believe me when I told them. But it's true."

He reached into his backpack, pulled out a bulging folder. From inside he removed what looked to be an old, yellowed newspaper in a clear plastic sheathe. He spun it around and set it down in front of them.

"Troy Stecher died in 1975."

Brock would have protested, or laughed again, or done  _something_ , but his mouth was dry and useless, and Troy's face stared up at him from a grainy black and white photo on the newspaper's front page.

_YOUNG HOMETOWN HERO CANUCK DIES ON HOME ICE_

_Vancouver Canucks fans were left horrified as Richmond, B.C. native Troy Stecher, age 22, collapsed to the ice in the midst of play. Stecher, a defenseman in his second season with the Canucks, appeared to begin to seize on the ice, before being taken off the ice on a stretcher by emergency personnel. He was pronounced dead upon arrival at hospital. An autopsy has yet to be completed, but medical professionals theorize that Stecher may have had a ruptured brain aneurysm..._

A hand slapped down over the paper before Brock could read further.

"What the fuck is this?" Ben hissed. His hand curled halfway to a fist, fingers dragging across the plastic covering the paper. "Is this some sort of sick joke?"

Trevor just watched them, face weary and drawn. "I'm sorry. I know it's awful. It  _is_  awful. But it's true."

Ben probably would have protested further, but Hank reached over the table and put a hand on Ben's wrist. "Hear him out first."

And Hank may not have been their captain anymore, but everyone listened to Henrik Sedin's captain voice.

Trevor smiled grimly. "Thanks. Look, I know you're all going to have questions, and I know you don't believe me, but humor me first."

He looked down the line, waited for them all to nod before he continued.

"I first met Troy at development camp in 1988, right after I was drafted. I'll never forget, he was off in the corner of the dressing room – this was back at the Coliseum, mind you, so the rooms were a lot smaller then. There were so many guys, and Troy was kind of off on his own, not talking to anyone, not doing anything. Just sitting there in his jersey, staring at the floor. Nobody was paying attention to him. I don't know how they missed him, though. He was so pale, white as a sheet of paper."

Unbidden, Brock remembered his own meeting with Troy. The feeling of ice water sliding down his neck, his spine. He felt it now, deep inside, making him shiver.

Troy was always so pale.

"I don't know, we made friends," Trevor said. "It was normal. It was all really, really normal. I didn't think anything of it. We had a great time at camp, we both made the team. We got along like immediately; we were best friends. We played a full season together, no problem. Second season together, the team was playing pretty badly. I missed a couple games due to injury, but I still had an okay season. We get to game seventy-five. March 18, 1990, away game against the Rangers. Troy and I are both on the ice, middle of the second period. I go to the boards to battle for the puck, and when I turn around, Troy's down on the ice, and he's not moving."

His voice was sounding rough, thin, and Trevor rested an elbow on the table, rubbed a hand over his brow.

"And then he started to move. Having a seizure. I freaked out. I go down to the ice, I'm screaming for help. He was just...his eyes rolled back into his head, I could see the whites of his eyes, and his skin was the same white. Everything was so, so white. I tried to grab at him, tried to hold his head or something, because it just kept bouncing off the ice, this awful sound, but it felt like I couldn't get a grip on him. And I'm begging everyone to help me, to fucking  _do_  something, and they're all just...staring at me. Nobody's moving. Nobody's doing anything to help. They just stare at me like there's something wrong with  _me_.

"I'm shouting at them,  _call an ambulance, Troy needs help_ , and Paul Reinhart was on the team at the time, and I'll never forget, he's standing there looking down at me and he says, 'Who's Troy?'"

Trevor laughed, but it was a broken, wet, bitter sound. "I swear I had nightmares about that moment for years. I'm screaming and crying, and he just looks down at me like I'm a lunatic and asks, 'Who's Troy?' My fucking best friend is having a seizure on the ice, and nobody wants to help him. And then I look back down, and Troy's stopped moving again. He's just laying there, his eyes are open, but the color's off. It's like...like when you print a color photo in greyscale, and you can tell something used to have a color, but now it's all just grey and-"

"Washed out," Brock heard himself say. He was surprised his jaw was even working. Everyone looked to him in surprise, but Brock's interest was only in Trevor. Their eyes met, and Brock had a slight inkling of the looks Trevor had been exchanging with the twins.

Louder he said, "Like...like an old photograph, but it didn't come out right and the person was moving, and everything's all blurry and faded."

Trevor's smile was small and sad and awful. "So you've seen it too."

Yes, Brock had seen it too. But God, he wished he hadn't.

"I watched him disappear," Trevor continued quietly. "I'm trying to grab onto him, because fuck it, if nobody's going to help him then I'll take him to the hospital myself. But it was like...I don't know. My hands were sliding off of him. Like something out of a dream, something impossible that physically can't happen. But no matter how hard I tried I couldn't touch him. And he got paler and paler, until he was the same color as the ice, and then I noticed he looked..."

" _Thin_." His voice broke off into a high whisper, and the line of ice in Brock's soul cracked.

"We were right over the edge of a face-off dot, and I only figured it out because I realized I could see it through his arm. Like,  _through_  him. I remember rearing back, blinking, trying to figure out what was going on, trying to really  _look_  at him. And the thing is with Troy, you can't really look at him. You think you're looking at him, but you're not. Your mind tricks you. It's like how if you give someone a few letters at the start and end of a word their brain fills in the rest into what they expect the word to be, and you can trick yourself into thinking you saw the whole thing. That's Troy. You get a little bit of information and your brain thinks it's seeing a whole person when in reality..."

He shook his head, gave them that wretched smile, and shrugged. "You're seeing a ghost."

Trevor wiped at his eyes, chuckled a little. It sounded like broken glass. "You know, even when I looked right through him, I didn't figure it out. I didn't really start to get it until I tried to make myself see what he looked like, and his jersey was wrong. It was the old hockey stick logo, and we were using the flying skate. I don't know why I'd never noticed it before. But suddenly it was all I could see, that the jersey was wrong. And then he got fainter and fainter, and...he was gone. I was staring at fucking blank ice where my best friend used to be. I thought I was losing my damn mind. I nearly did. I'm asking everyone about Troy, what happened to Troy, and nobody on the team knew what I meant. The doctors wanted to send me for a psych eval, and Stan Smyl, he was the captain at the time, he pulled me aside after the game and asked me if I was talking about Troy Stecher. It was the first thing that had made sense all night."

"Stan Smyl knows Troy?" Jake's face was twisted up in disbelief, like that was the part of the whole story that was unbelievable.

Trevor nodded. "If you'd believe it, he met him at development camp. In 1978. Except he'd been playing in New Westminster in 1975, and he knew exactly who Troy Stecher was and what he looked like, because it had been all over the news when he died. He freaked out when he saw him at camp because he knew Troy was supposed to be dead. Yelled at him, told him he was dead, that he couldn't be there."

"And how did that help him?" Bo had the sort of look on his face that he wore when he played poker, like if he stared hard enough he could see inside them and tell if they were lying.

"Well, it worked, because Troy disappeared, and Stan thought he'd had a nervous breakdown and started hallucinating from the stress of getting to the NHL. But then it didn't happen again, and he forgot all about it for twelve years until he saw me freaking out on the ice screaming about my friend Troy disappearing."

He was quiet then, waiting, watching them all. Apparently he'd said his piece.

"That's fucking insane," Jake said.

Apparently Jake didn't agree with his piece.

"No, seriously. You're trying to tell us that, what, our teammate is a ghost? And he's haunting the arena?"

"He's haunting the team," Henrik said. "If he haunted the arena, he'd still be at the Coliseum, because that's where he died. He follows the team."

"And he used to only be able to show up at team functions, until Brock invited him to  _live together_ ," Daniel added. Brock felt his ears turn red, even though he didn't think he had anything to be ashamed of. But being scolded by a man who was like your second or third dad would do that to a guy.

Ben snorted loudly, leaning back from the table. "That's horse shit," he said. He took his cap off, smoothed his hair back and put it back on backwards. "We play with the guy every day, I think we'd know if he was  _dead_."

"Would you, though?" Trevor raised his eyebrows, leaned in a bit over the table. "Think about it. Really think about it. You see him on the ice, sure. Do you pass to him? He's a defenseman; who's his usual d-partner? Is he on the power play, the penalty kill? What kind of minutes does he get?"

"He's..." Ben trailed off, bit his lip.

Brock's nails were digging red crescents into the skin of his palms, because he couldn't answer any of those questions either. Fuck, he didn't know. He'd known Troy for nearly two years and  _he didn't know_ , how could he not know?

Trevor slid his phone across the table. "This is the current roster. All twenty-three active players. Show me where Troy is. You know all twenty-three of the people on this roster are currently on the team; how is there room for Troy?"

Ben took the phone, hunched over it with Bo and Jake. They all knew Petey knew the roster. Brock didn't need to look at it. He knew the answer already.

He knew the sickening, disgusting, heart-wrenching answer.

Because Trevor was right: he couldn't think of a single time he'd ever seen Troy during a game, like  _actually_  saw him play. He saw him on the bench, on the ice, in the dressing room. But he'd never seen him take shots, or check anybody. He'd never seen him hug someone after a goal. He'd never seen him give an interview, or had reporters ask him about Troy's game.

Troy talked about how awesome he thought Edler was all the time, but Brock had never actually seen them talking to each other.

Which would make sense, because Alex didn't know who he was.

"Why would we know?" Brock's voice was quiet, painful, like the words were bring carved out of his chest. "Why do we know him, when nobody else does?"

Trevor's eyes were sad again; inexplicably, Brock wanted to punch him.

"He's attached to you," Trevor said. "You specifically, Brock. That's how he works. It's...it's a cycle. Someone has to pick him up at development camp to start the cycle; if nobody sees him, or they see him but they don't approach him, then nothing happens. But if you talk to him, it's like..."

"You wake him up," Brock whispered. With stark clarity he remembered Troy's sleepy, hazy grey eyes, blinking up at him as if coming out of a far-away daze.

Trevor nodded. "Exactly. You wake him up, and he latches on to you. It's not...I don't think it's intentional. He doesn't know what's happening. He...he doesn't know he's dead. He never does. Every time the cycle starts, he's a normal kid, back at camp for the first time. Local boy looking to be the hometown hero. And then it goes on as normal, until you reach the seventy-fifth game of his second season... He dies every time."

"We met him too," Henrik said, drawing everyone's attention. "Dan and I, we met him at camp, just like you. He ended up...attached to the both of us, so we didn't notice it so much. But when he gets attached, he takes energy from you. It's how he sort of...comes to life again."

Hutty scoffed, "What, like a vampire or something?"

He sounded like he was in a bad way. Frankly, Brock didn't understand why he wasn't right there with Ben, angry and overwrought and upset. Brock just felt...numb.

It was ridiculous and insane and awful, and it made sense.

"Some people say ghosts use magnetic energy," Bo said slowly. "Or like...types of electricity."

"Our apartment is always cold," Brock murmured. "He never notices the temperature, but his skin is like ice, and the apartment is cold no matter how much I turn the heat up."

"He's drawing from it," Trevor agreed, nodding. "Mostly from you, but also from your space. It's not a conscious thing. He can't help himself, he couldn't stop it if he tried. It's just part of how he exists. But when he takes energy from you, it makes you weaker. Makes you more susceptible to illness...makes recovery from injuries a lot slower."

Nobody was looking at Brock, but everybody was looking at Brock.

Brock was looking back at that magical time in Minnesota where all of his injuries seemed to rapidly disappear after lingering for so much longer than the doctors said they would.

Hutty made some cut-off, frustrated noise. "So if he's supposed to be attached to Brock, then how do the rest of us see him, huh?"

The twins looked at Trevor; Trevor shrugged. "Best guess is that it's because Brock went out of his way to directly introduce him to you all. None of us ever introduced him to anyone because...well, to be honest it wouldn't have occurred to us. We thought everyone already knew him."

"He's like that," Daniel said. "Reality is...weird around him. Things blur together. You don't think about logical things, like how nobody else ever talks to him or you've never seen his family even though he's local. For us, we never thought about how we never saw him away from the arena. Even if you start to notice those things, the thoughts slip away again right after."

"I forgot that I didn't recognize him," Elias said quietly.

"Right. Like Trevor said, your mind fills in the gaps and smoothes everything out. You see what you expect to see. You see him in modern clothes, the right jersey, the right styles, because it would be strange if he wasn't. Your brain doesn't want to try to understand a ghost, and so it makes him human again."

It all made sense, just as Troy had always made sense. Quietly, Brock pulled out his phone, pulled up his latest conversation with Troy. It was right there from yesterday, Brock asking what time Troy would be home.

He went to pull up the contact, wanted to look at the phone number. His thumb went to hit the button, but it was like moving through molasses.

Brock looked down at his phone again, squinted at it, had to stop and think about what he was supposed to be looking for.

With a jolt he remembered, and he went to hit the button to see Troy's contact information. He blinked again, and his phone screen was turned off.

"What are you looking at?" Ben asked, nudging his side. "You've just been staring at the blank screen."

Tears burned in the corners of his eyes, and Brock knew that what they were all saying was true.

"Troy's dead," he whispered.

Troy was dead, and he'd been dead for forty-three years, and Brock just had breakfast with him this morning while Troy fretted over making sure he didn't aggravate his injury again.

Because Troy didn't want Brock to get hurt, even though Troy would only make him be injured for longer, because Troy was pulling energy from him, because Troy was a ghost who died when a blood vessel in his brain burst in 1975.

He hadn't known you could grieve for someone who died over twenty years before you were born. But he didn't know you could live with a ghost, either.

He didn't know what Troy's bedroom looked like.

A hand landed on his back, startling him. Ben smiled sadly and rubbed up and down his back, pulled Brock closer to his side.

On the far side of the bench, Bo straightened up, put his captain face on, the one that he swore he didn't have. "Okay, so say that this is all true and Troy's a ghost. What does that mean, practically? What's next?"

Clearly they weren't going to like the answer, given that Brock hadn't known that the Sedins could actually look shifty.

"You need to let him go," Trevor said after a moment of deliberation.

Brock balked. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"Fuck that noise," Jake said at the same time.

Trevor was unimpressed.

"It means that if the cycle plays out, he's going to die again in March. The seventy-fifth game of his second season. And you're going to have to watch your friend die and not be able to do anything to stop it, just like I did. I don't want that for you, and I don't want that for him."

"But you want to get rid of him," Hutty asserted.

They all jumped when Trevor's fist slammed against the table.

"He was my best friend too!" He stood in his seat, leaning over the table. "Do you think I want to send him away? I don't! He was my best friend, I fucking loved him, we did everything together. I was like Brock, I didn't take him home with me but I invited him out places, we hung out. We were inseparable. When I figured out that Hank and Danny could see Troy I was over the fucking moon because I thought I was going to get to see my best friend again. Except I couldn't see him, and he didn't remember me. He never remembers. And so then I had to learn to be realistic. They were already in Troy's second season when I got traded back to the Canucks, and I figured in all likelihood the pattern was going to repeat again. And so we had a choice: let it play out, and make Danny and Hank have to see that, and make Troy have to relive his fucking  _death_  again, or make him go away before it happened."

Trevor was breathing heavily, face red, chest heaving, eyes bright and wild. Looking at him, Brock was finally able to see a bit of the Trevor Linden that must have went at it against Messier in the dressing room, the passionate captain with or without the C, instead of just the buttoned up executive he'd always known.

But he also imagined what it would feel like, to let things play out. To have to watch Troy on the ice like that, scared and seizing and unable to do anything to help him.

Watching him turn so white that nobody could see him anymore.

"How do we send him away?"

Brock could feel Ben flinch against him, turn to stare at him like he'd grown a second head. "Dude, what the fuck? Troy's our friend!"

It hurt, the betrayal in Ben's voice, the anger in Jake's face, the way Bo looked like he'd been slapped. Even Petey seemed surprised.

It hurt, because everything fucking hurt.

But Troy had to be hurting the worst of all.

Troy, who didn't know he was dead.

Troy, whose lifelong dream was to win the Stanley Cup with the Vancouver Canucks.

Brock frowned, looked down at his phone, ignoring Hutty's sound of outrage as he pulled up Wikipedia. "The Canucks made the playoffs for the first time in 1975."

He didn't have to explain his train of thought; from everyone's expressions, they all understood. Trevor probably already knew.

Troy had never lived to see the Canucks make the playoffs, or win their first division title. Troy had never lived to see them make it to the Finals three times, or win the Presidents' Trophy twice; he didn't live to see them slay the dragon.

Troy didn't  _live_.

It wasn't fair. This whole thing thrown at them out of the blue today, when all Brock wanted to do was finish his PT and get back on the ice. Help his boys get back into the playoffs.

With Troy, his roommate and best friend, who was  _dead_.

None of this was fucking fair. Least of all to Troy, because Troy didn't know. Troy wasn't trying to hurt anyone. Troy didn't even know he was dead.

Troy just wanted to play hockey.

Brock could understand that.

"I know it sucks," Trevor said gently, bringing Brock's focus back to the present. "It's the worst kind of awful. But it's better for everyone if you let Troy go now."

"It doesn't have to be today," Jake interrupted. He looked frantic, eyes wild, roving from one person to the next while his hands tapped a staccato beat on the wooden table. "If this is all true, then Troy would still be here until March. That's months away. We've got time, we can like, research shit. This must have happened to someone else. Maybe we can find a way to help him, or like, bring him back, or-"

"He's dead."

Trevor's voice was a gunshot, firm and startling.

He cleared his throat.

"He's dead. He's been dead and buried for a long, long time. If such a thing was possible, it's not happening now. Right now, you need to stop the cycle before it gets too far. Today."

Brock's icy soul shivered again. "Today?" he squeaked, while Ben and Jake immediately started to protest. "Why can't it wait until March like Jake said?"

"You'll forget." At least this time Trevor's eyes were apologetic as he shattered Brock's heart. "I tried letting Henrik and Daniel wait, when I explained to them what was going on. The next day, I had to explain it all over again. And the day after that. It's the way things work with Troy, the way they fuzz over, especially the more time you spend with him. It's hard to remember anything that would point towards him not being real. If you sleep on it, I promise you'll forget this entire conversation tomorrow morning. It has to be today. Unless you want to have to live this all over again. And trust me, it won't get better."

Brock thought of Trevor's story, the way he got so broken up telling it even now, almost thirty years later.

He thought about having to tell people over and over again because they kept forgetting.

No, this wasn't fair to anyone.

Least of all to Troy.

"Do we..." He swallowed, but the lump in his throat wouldn't go away. "What...what do we do?"

And wasn't that the question of the day. Of the last forty years, evidently.

"You have to remind him that he's dead," Henrik said quietly, hands restless on the tabletop. "Stan did that when he started yelling at Troy about the accident. Danny and I..."

He gestured at the folder. "We put together some things to show him that Trevor had collected, articles and photos. Gave him proof. He won't want to accept it. You have to be firm."

Trevor started picking through the folder, sliding the newspaper article he'd shown them back inside. "I have his parents' obituaries now too. His mom died last year; his dad was maybe six or seven years ago. They kept the same house that he grew up in; it's sold now, so if we had to we could show him the house."

Brock was already shaking his head. That felt like too much, too close. He couldn't imagine doing that to Troy, showing him that the house he had thought he still lived in when they met belonged to someone else now, and his parents were gone, and his dog, God, she was long gone-

And his mom had been alive last year. Fuck, but Brock could have taken Troy to see his mom again. He could have let him have that moment, even once, to get to see his family, because he'd never see them if he was stuck haunting the Canucks in some fucked up cycle, and-

"Why have we never heard of him before?" he asked. "If he's...if he died, why isn't there anything in the arena? Everyone knows about Wayne Maki, and Luc Bourdon, and Rick Rypien."

He couldn't help but see the twins both grimace and look down as he spoke.

"So if they'll put up tributes to everyone else, why has nobody ever even heard of Troy before?"

The following silence was uncomfortable, but then, nothing about this conversation was comforting.

"I don't have a good answer for that," Trevor said slowly. Now he sounded like the diplomatic president again. "Time, I think. Luc and Rick were recent; people remember seeing them play, know how much they meant to their teammates. It matters to them. Wayne passed a long time ago, but he was well-known before the Canucks were even a team. It was a big deal when he died, and then people kind of forgot about it...well, until someone wanted to use his number."

He made a face; they all knew enough of that story not to press.

"But Troy..." Trevor looked off at the vacant park around them, the grey skies, the breeze rustling through the green trees. "I don't know. Troy wasn't very well-known, I don't think. People knew more about him when he died than when he was alive. And once the novelty of his death wore off...they didn't know him at all. People stop caring about you when you're dead."

He shrugged a little, eyes trained somewhere to Brock's right. "You know, nobody ever visits Troy's grave. I think his mother used to, when she'd been in better health, but still not that often. Whenever I went, it would have weeds around it, dead flowers. Now that she's gone I just go in expecting I'll have to do a bit of yard work."

For some reason it had never occurred to Brock that Troy would not only be buried, but be buried nearby. "You visit his grave?"

Trevor smiled, just a little bit, but his eyes were far, far away. "For almost thirty years now. I told you, he was my best friend. That doesn't go away just because I found out he was already dead before I knew him."

Troy was always so cold. That was all Brock could think, staring at Trevor's sad, distant smile. Troy was so cold, and pale – thin, translucent,  _corpselike_ , wasn't that what Brock had thought?

Ghostly. Troy was ghostly, but in the right light he was shaped like Brock's best friend.

That best friend had been dead and in the ground for forty-three years. There was probably nothing left of him now, skin and flesh and muscle all worn away by worms and rot and time. A memory of a budding hockey player, broken down to thin, cold bones in a grave only remembered by people who knew him after he died.

He should have hugged Troy more. It repeated on a loop in Brock's head as tears burned behind his eyes and he rested his forehead upon his folded arms on the table. Maybe if he'd hugged Troy more, made sure the whole team knew him, he could have breathed some life back into him. Made him warm. And Troy had been warmer, sometimes. Still cool, but not so frigid. It was when he'd been drawing energy from Brock, apparently, but fuck, he could have all of the energy he wanted if it would make him feel better.

Troy must have been so scared. Hitting the ice like that in the middle of a game, fighting so hard to get his team to their first ever playoff run, he probably had no idea what had happened. Maybe he'd never known.

In a just world, he would have been unconscious before he hit the ice. He would have closed his eyes and never woken up, never known that he had a seizure, never known that he was bleeding into his brain.

Never known that he was dying surrounded by thousands of spectators, peering down at him like his death was the afternoon's entertainment.

In a fair world, Troy Stecher would still be alive today. He'd have retired after a long and successful career, married and had kids, maybe grandkids. He'd come to alumni events and everyone would applaud him and he'd get the recognition he deserved from generations of adoring fans.

But the world was neither just nor fair, and Troy would know nothing of either one. Because he was a ghost, and he didn't even know it.

And now Brock had to be the one to tell him.

It wasn't fair. It was cruel, but the world had always been cruel to Troy Stecher.

What was one more cruelty, if he wouldn't even remember it?

"Will he come back again?" Brock asked the table, voice muttered by the sleeve of his sweatshirt. He felt someone's hand on his back, probably Hutty's, but he didn't bother to see if anyone else had gotten up to move closer to him. "If I send him away today. Will he come back?"

He wasn't sure what answer he wanted. A chance for Troy to live again, but at the expense of another person being in Brock's same position in a few years? Having to be the one to possibly tell that kid what Trevor was telling them now? Or the alternative, of Troy being gone  _somewhere_ , but never knowing if he was at rest or if he was in heaven or wherever tragically young hockey players went when they died horrible deaths. Or worse, if he was just floating around in the ether, forever trapped watching the Vancouver Canucks but never able to reach out, to communicate. To feel warm again.

"We don't know," he heard Trevor say. "I kept watch for years after I found out that I wasn't the first to know him, but I never heard anyone mention him until the twins when I got traded back."

Henrik spoke then. "We watched for a long time, but we got...I guess complacent is the right word. Nothing happened for so long, we thought maybe he had finally moved on. I'm sorry that we didn't notice this last year; we were sloppy, and that's our fault."

He reached out to tousle Brock's hair, gently, like he would for a little kid.

Brock just couldn't understand what he was apologizing for; he would never be sorry for having met his best friend.

But he would be sorry to say goodbye to him.

"What do I have to do?" he mumbled into his arm. He almost wished that it would be muffled enough that nobody would hear him, but from the bitten-off gasp somewhere down the table, they definitely did.

There was some shifting around him, the table creaking ominously at holding so many grown hockey players for so long.

"I think," Trevor said carefully, "That this might best be done elsewhere."

Brock could understand not trying to fucking exorcise his best friend in the middle of a public park, but he didn't think that it meant he was going to have to stand in the middle of Mountain View Cemetery just as the grey, cloudy skies opened up into a dreary, misty rain.

It was fucking unnerving, standing amongst a veritable sea of graves, some more than a hundred years old, knowing that Trevor was leading them ever closer to the one that contained the same guy who'd brought Brock oatmeal this morning.

He didn't know what he'd been expecting. Something monumental, maybe, standing in a field full of statuary built to withstand decades and centuries.

He wasn't expecting a simple flat grey slab in the ground, sunken a little at the edges, so that the grass was starting to encroach over the sides. One of the corners was cracked, a small fissure traveling from the top to the right side, probably from the ground shifting over the years.

_TROY STECHER_

_APRIL 7, 1952- MARCH 25, 1975_

That was it. A piece of stone no bigger than a sheet of copy paper, a name, and a set of dates. That was all that remained to commemorate a Vancouver Canuck who spent his last moments trying to support the team he loved.

It didn't feel real.

It wasn't fucking  _fair_.

"His parents are a row down," Trevor was saying, as if that was Brock's primary concern. "I kind of get the impression that there wasn't a lot of money for the funeral."

Brock didn't look away from the grave marker, but he could hear the disparagement in Jake's voice when he said, "He was a professional hockey player who  _died on the ice_."

"It was the '70s, and he was a relative nobody," Trevor replied. "I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying that's probably what happened."

Brock shoved his hands in the pocket of his hoodie and kicked at the grass, before immediately regretting it.

That was Troy there, after all.

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked for the thousandth time that day.

"Call him," Trevor said easily.

Brock wanted to punch him for his tone alone.

" _Call him_? On what, my phone?"

When he looked up to glare at Trevor, Trevor just did that damnable shrug again.

"It's worked in the past, hasn't it? Look, it doesn't matter if you aren't actually dialing your phone. What matters is that your brain thinks you're inviting him. He's attached to you; if you invite him here, he'll come."

A hand was on his wrist before Brock could even think about reaching for his phone. "You don't have to do this," Jake said. His blue eyes were so big, and so scared. Brock was right there with him on that one. "You don't have to, we can – there's got to be other options."

"I'm with Jake." Ben stepped closer, brushing up against Brock's other side. "We should, like...we should vote or something! He's all of our friend. Just because he met Brock first doesn't mean that Brock has to do this alone."

They looked over at Elias and Bo. Elias had that unreadable expression once again, but his hands were twitching nervously at his sides. "I think...it is better to let him go. This is not...it is not normal."

Normally, Brock would say that Ben could get past most any perceived slight or betrayal against him, with enough time. But seeing the look on Ben's face now, he wasn't sure Ben would ever forgive Petey for that vote.

"Bo?" Jake asked. Brock had never heard him sound so hesitant before.

He didn't want to hear it again.

Bo looked down for a long time, staring so hard at Troy's grave, like that might summon him on its own. He wasn't even the captain yet, and this was probably the hardest decision he'd ever had to make for his team.

"I think...Trevor's right. This is what's best for Troy. It's kindest."

If Ben was betrayed by Petey, he was absolutely crushed by Bo.

Some part of their friendship wasn't coming back from this.

Troy, Brock realized distantly. The part of their friendship where they had another friend named Troy, and he was dead, and they were voting on sending him away.

They could be angry with each other all they wanted, but Troy was the one affected by this.

Brock couldn't be making this decision without him here.

He pulled out his phone, ignoring Jake and Ben's twin sounds of outrage. The screen was blank, just like before.

But apparently that had never stopped him from calling Troy before.

He opened up his contacts. Somehow he knew Troy's number wouldn't be there, not at first. He scrolled to the  _S_  section; he was focusing too hard.

Troy started to get transparent if you focused too hard.

Brock closed his eyes, squared his shoulders, and exhaled.

When he opened his eyes, he pulled up his recent texts. Troy's was there, right at the top.

Without letting himself think, Brock called the number.

"Hey man, what's up?" Troy sounded so normal, so fucking normal and  _alive_ , and Brock wanted to cry. Troy was here talking to him like it was just another day, as Brock stood there staring down at his grave.

Christ, but it wasn't fair.

"I, uh. Fuck. Bud, I need you to come meet me. At uh. Mountain View, the cemetery. Do you know where it is?"

"Do I know where- yeah, I know where it is, but what the hell are you doing at a cemetery? Are you okay? You sound awful. Look, I can come get you, I'll leave now. I can call Bo; do you want me to call Bo?"

He was concerned for Brock. Troy was dead, but he was concerned for Brock.

It would be so typical for him. He was always more concerned for his friends than for himself.

"No, Bo's – Bo's here." He saw Bo startle at his words, eyes blowing wide. "We just – we need you go come out here."

"Uh, yeah, of course. Just...sit tight, man, I'll be right there. Don't do anything dumb. You're scaring me a little."

Troy laughed, clearly trying to soften it.

Brock just wanted to cry.

"Okay. I'll see you in a bit."

"Okay. Stay safe."

He could hear the call disconnect.

When Brock looked down at his phone, the screen was black; when he turned it on, the phone asked him for his passcode.

The rain was starting to soak through his hoodie.

It was the only thing that made sense.

They didn't have to wait long. Brock wasn't sure quite how many minutes were spent standing in silence, huddled on the dampening lawn around on small, cracked gravestone, but it seemed like seconds and hours before Troy was cresting the hill and walking towards them. He was wearing a baseball cap and a nice button-down coat, one Brock remembered picking out at the store with him. He marveled at his brain's consistency, wondered if maybe the other guys didn't see the same thing as him.

It would make sense, if they were all just seeing what they expected to see.

Troy came to a slow stop as he approached, looking around the assembled group with confusion.

"What's going on?" His question was asked to the general group, but his eyes were focused on Brock.

Brock had to try it, at least once.

"Troy, this is Trevor Linden, and that's Daniel and Henrik Sedin."

Troy looked at him like he'd just grown a second head, popped it off, and suggested they play two-touch with it. "Uh, yeah man, I know. What is this? Are you sick or something?"

Helplessly, Brock looked over at Trevor and the twins; they all shook their heads regretfully.

They still couldn't see him.

Brock shut his eyes and told himself that the moisture on his face was rainwater.

"I need you to see something," he said.

Unbidden, he reached out and grabbed Troy's hand. It was like holding a block of ice, except the block of ice frowned and squeezed Brock's hand in his own.

"You're cold," Troy said, and Brock wanted to sob.

Ben actually did, burying his face in his hands, and Troy spun around, eyes wide, ready to go over and ask what was wrong. But there was Captain Bo, stepping between them, eyes glassy and moments from breaking down himself. "I've got this, Stech," he said with a thin voice and a thinner smile. He was gentle, so gentle, as he guided Troy back to Brock's side. "Go see what Brock has to show you."

Troy looked like he wanted to object, sending nervous looks Ben's way, that same mother hen face that Brock gave him so much shit for. God, he wanted to go back and smack himself for every time that he thought Troy was irritating or overbearing. He hadn't understood the gift he'd had.

He tugged on Troy's hand again, unwilling to let it go even when he knew it was getting weird. Troy was looking down at their joined hands with visible concern, but he was humoring Brock because Brock was his friend.

Brock was just afraid that if he let go, Troy would disappear.

Slowly, Brock pulled Troy over to that small, forgettable grey slab. Cold, alone, abandoned by time and humanity.

"Troy," he said slowly, focusing on how the name felt in his mouth, "I need you to look at this."

Troy stepped right up and followed Brock's gaze to the ground, because he didn't know what was happening. He didn't know to be slow or reverent or scared.

There probably wasn't a right or wrong way to behave when presented with your own grave.

But Troy squeezed Brock's hand again and asked, "What is this?"

He sounded upset. Maybe a little angry.

But he was holding onto Brock's hand so tightly, like his body knew what his brain wouldn't let him acknowledge.

Well. His body would know better than anyone what had happened, because it was buried six feet below where they stood.

"Troy." His voice was shaking now, hard, but that was because he felt like he could barely inhale each gasping, rattling breath. "When were you born?"

"What?"

Brock looked over at Trevor and the twins. They were watching him oddly, faces pinched in concern.

He'd have to imagine it looked rather strange, watching them all talking to thin air.

"When were you born?" he repeated. "What year?"

Troy tugged at his hand, less trying to pull away and more trying to get his full attention.

"What are you talking about? You know how old I am. Are you feeling okay? What the hell is going on here?"

Even as he sounded accusatory, Troy was bringing his free hand up to Brock's forehead, pushing his hair back to rest his palm against it.

His hand was frigid, like pressing bare skin to an icicle, but it wasn't even slightly damp.

Brock nudged his hand away as carefully as possible. "Troy. I need you to focus, really focus. What year were you born?"

This close, he could see the blue of Troy's eyes. But they weren't blue, were they? Not really. They were bright, but grey. He'd only thought they were blue.

And his skin was white, white, white, like the marble monuments around them, glossy and purple-hued but not nearly so substantial, not when Brock was concentrating on it like this. In fact if he paid close attention and he kept his gaze somewhere around Troy's collarbone, he could swear that on the edge of his vision he saw the trim of a white jersey.

White was the home color in 1975, after all.

But Troy wasn't looking at Brock anymore. He was looking at the ground in front of them, frowning down at it. His mouth was moving, forming some kind of words, but they weren't the inscription on the grave.

"That's not right," he murmured as if to himself, looking down at the slab.

"What's not right?" Brock startled at Jake's voice; he'd forgotten that there were even other people there.

Troy didn't seem to notice at all. "This can't be right. It's..."

He shook his head like he was trying to remove cobwebs. For a moment Troy looked up at Brock, but then his gaze was inexorably drawn back to the grave.

"Brock?" he asked in a thin, careful,  _fragile_  voice. "Brock, what is this?"

He sounded broken. He sounded  _scared_. And when he turned back, he was staring at Brock, asking,  _begging_  him for an answer.

Brock squeezed Troy's hand between both of his own and said, "You died, Troy."

Nobody ever prepared you for having to tell your best friend he was dead. Brock wasn't sure what that would entail. Movies would say that this was the part where Troy dissolved into some sort of furious poltergeist, kicking up a storm and attacking people out of a misplaced desire for revenge.

But this wasn't a movie. This was Troy.

And Troy stared Brock directly in the eyes and said, "That's not possible."

That lump in Brock's throat had never really gone away, but now it was back, and he was choking on it.

"There was- something went wrong. You had a medical emergency on the ice, and-"

"No." It was so simple when Troy said it, easy, like he didn't have to argue because he knew it was fact. "No. We're going to the playoffs."

He was looking at Brock, but his eyes were staring through him, like he was talking to someone else. Somewhere behind him, Brock could hear someone crying, but at this point he wasn't sure who it was. All he could do was stare at Troy and hold onto his hand, begging him to understand so that Brock didn't have to keep laying it out for him.

"Troy," he said desperately, voice cracking, "Troy, you  _died_. In 1975, you died, and now you're – you're-"

The words wouldn't come. He couldn't do it, he couldn't fucking do it. The words clogged in his throat, acrid and poisonous and awful, and Brock wished so badly he could let them die there.

"Why are you crying?"

Troy's eyes were clearer now, zeroed in on Brock with that same concern he always showed. "Brock? What's going on?"

"Fuck." Brock scraped his free hand across his eyes, but it did little to make that burning feeling go away. The rain was picking up; at least that would hide some of his tears.

"Troy, you're forgetting things. You've been forgetting for a long time. You – you keep forgetting that you  _died_ , and you think you're still playing hockey, and you were friends with Trevor when he was a rookie, and Hank and Danny, and, and you met Stan Smyl, and-"

He jumped when Troy's free hand landed on his shoulder, so impossibly cold.

"Hey." Troy smiled at him, a little quirk of the lips. "Hey, it's okay."

Brock couldn't do this. He'd already thought it was impossible, but this was, this was-

This wasn't just going to break their friendship, this was going to break  _him_.

"You're dead!" he exploded, shaking off Troy's grip on his shoulder and wrenching their hands apart. "You're dead! You fucking died in 1975, Stech; we're standing on your grave! You died and your parents died and your dog died because it was forty-three years ago and you are  _dead_ , Troy!"

He regretted it immediately, standing there panting, shoulders heaving and chest rattling. He regretted it, but he couldn't take the words back, replace the blinders and return to how things were before.

Troy looked like he'd been struck. And he was so, so pale.

"I...I..."

His voice broke, and his eyes started to water – grey-blue eyes, more grey than blue, the color smearing around along with the rest of him, fuzzy and unfocused.

"I don't  _remember_."

If this was a horror movie, it would have been a wail. But it was a whisper, and it broke Brock's heart all the more for it.

"I know you don't." He snatched at Troy's hand again, suddenly desperate to prove he still could, mind whirring with thoughts of Trevor's nightmares, trying to grab hold of Troy as he slipped away. His hand was still solid.

It was still cold.

"I know you don't," he said again, voice watery. He was drowning now. "You...they said you always forget. You always think that..."

There was no way to say it. There was no way to tell Troy that he always thought he was alive again, that he was just at the start of his career, that he had a long life playing hockey ahead of him.

That he would just die again in a few months anyway, because fate would never let Troy Stecher make the playoffs in his sophomore year, whether or not the Canucks were in.

Troy shook his head again, eyes flitting amongst them all, from Brock to Bo and Ben, to Jake and Petey, then over to Trevor and Daniel and Henrik. His eyes stuck there, his head tilted to the side, face scrunched up like he knew there was something he was missing.

"I don't...I don't..." Helplessly, he looked back at Brock.

"Brock," he hissed lowly, "Brock, what's happening?"

"I don't know," Brock croaked. His smile was a broken, wretched, tremulous thing. "I don't know, Stech. I think...I think you have to move on."

But Troy just stared at him like it didn't compute. His eyes were scared and focused and vacant all at once. When he squeezed Brock's hand, he dug in his nails like it was all he could do to cling on for life.

It probably was.

"I don't know what that means," Troy said, shaking his head. "Brock, I don't..."

He kept shaking his head, faster and faster, looked over at the boys again.

"Guys, what's..."

Ben couldn't even look at him, face buried in Bo's shoulder, and Jake was just standing there, one big hand covering the bottom half of his face, looking like he was desperately trying to hold in a sob.

Elias stood there, looking stunned.

"You're my friends," Troy said feebly.

It would have been better if the lump in his throat had just choked him.

"We are," Brock agreed. "Always, Troy. We're always going to be your friends. But...you have to go now. You have to move on."

For the rest of his life, Brock would never forget the look on Troy's face in that moment: the confusion, the heartbreak.

The loneliness.

Because it had to be endlessly lonely, spending all of those years on the edge of the dressing room, waiting for someone to say hello to him, to welcome him back to the world of the living.

To make him a little bit less alone, if only for a short time.

"I just want to play hockey," Troy whispered.

Brock squeezed his hand and pulled him into a hug. Troy gripped him back, loosely at first, and then tighter.

His sweatshirt was already soaked, but Brock swore something warm and wet dropped onto his shoulder. "I know, bud. I know."

Arms suddenly came around their shoulders and Ben was attaching himself to their sides, pressing his face against Troy's hair. A moment later Bo was joining them, and Jake, and hesitantly, Elias.

They clung to each other, a shivering, damp, sobbing mess.

"I don't understand," Troy whispered into Brock's shoulder. "I don't understand."

What was left of Brock's miserable heart shattered.

"I know you don't. I know. All you need to know is that we love you, and you're always going to be our friend. But we need you to go now."

He thought it would take time. He thought there would be more ceremony to it, some sort of defining action that sealed their fate.

But all it took were a few short words, and the cold at Brock's front dissipated until he was clutching onto Jake and Ben and Bo and Elias and Troy was gone, gone, gone, except he'd been there all along, right under their feet.

The trickle of ice in Brock's soul melted away.

He'd do anything to put it back.

~~~

Things were never the same after that.

Brock was packing up his apartment within the week; he couldn't stand the idea of staying there knowing that Troy wasn't there, that he'd never been there at all.

He'd peeked into Troy's bedroom exactly once.

When he'd seen the blank white walls and bare, dusty floor, unoccupied since he'd first moved in, he'd rushed to the bathroom to throw up.

He didn't go back there again.

Troy wasn't there, after all.

And God, did Brock look for him. He found himself doing it all the time, turning to speak to him, to make a joke, to ask a question. When he wasn't thinking about it he'd scroll through his phone trying to find his text conversation with Troy to send him a meme or a dumb photo until it all came back to him again, and then he'd try so, so hard to close his eyes and  _forget_  like he had before, like maybe that would make Troy's number come back.

It never worked.

The boys were messed up. Nothing was meshing right anymore; they could barely look at each other. Hutty was withdrawn, Jake was angry all the time. Bo had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and Elias.

Elias was still on track to get the Calder, but sometimes he'd just look at them all and  _stare_ , and it had nothing to do with any kind of death glare that the media wanted to promote.

He was probably asking himself if it had all been real, Brock reasoned. When he was able to be reasonable at all, that was.

Mostly, he felt like his world was on fire at any given moment, but he was past the point of caring about putting it out.

Life went on, and there was always more hockey to play.

Well. For them, at least.

It was reaching the end of the season when PR sat the team down for a meeting.

"I'll keep this brief, guys," one of the staffers said, "We just wanted to let you know that we're going to be having a short dedication ceremony before the game on Saturday. We're putting out the press release today, so you might get a few questions about it. I don't think most of you will be familiar with this, but a few of our alumni brought up a concern to management, and we thought it was worth pursuing. Back in the '70s there was a Canucks player who had a ruptured aneurysm during a game; he pretty much had a stroke on the ice and died."

There was a universal recoil by the team, horrified murmurs amongst themselves.

Brock was freezing cold.

"It was clearly a tragedy for our team and our city, seeing as he was a local," she continued, "And we agreed with our alumni that he deserves to be honored in the arena. We think there may have been some small memorial at the Coliseum back in the '70s, but nobody knows what happened to it. So we decided we're going to make a new one. We'll have a plaque up on the concourse, and we're trying to see if we can track down some sort of memorabilia from his career. So before the game we're just going to be saying a few words about his career and what happened, and after that business as usual. Any questions?"

Suttsy actually raised his hand. "Uh, who was he?"

The staffer looked surprised, and then laughed, chagrined. "Oh, sorry. His name was Troy Stecher."

Most of the guys didn't react. Most of the guys were able to stand up and move on with their morning.

But Brock stayed frozen in his chair, staring at the floor, wishing that he could forget just enough to remember again.

A warm hand landed on his shoulder – far too warm.

"Hey," Eagle said, leaning down so he could catch Brock's eye. He was wearing that concerned dad face he'd perfected since the twins retired. "Didn't some of you guys say you knew a guy named something like that? A guy named Troy?"

Brock bit the inside of his lip until he tasted blood.

"I used to know someone named Troy. But he's gone now."

His hands were so, so cold, but it would never be cold enough.

~~~

Quinn was by no means a veteran NHL player. With a whole five games under his belt as a Vancouver Canuck and three whole assists to his name, he was barely an NHL player at all.

But it was still his second development camp, and he felt a little more comfortable in his skin this year. Maybe a little more comfortable than some of the other players.

Well, it wasn't too surprising; he was signed to an entry-level contract now. There was a degree of security in that which not everybody could enjoy.

Still, he always tried to be welcoming to new guys on any team, especially guys who might not feel so comfortable at their first development camp, worried about not making a good showing of themselves.

So when he walked into the locker room and saw a smaller guy about his size hunched up in the corner of the room, he thought he'd go over and say hi.

The guy was super pale, like concerningly white, but the lights in the dressing room were a little funky sometimes. Besides, he wouldn't be the only player who looked sickly on the first day of camp when nerves were running wild.

"Hey man, I'm Quinn," he said, holding out his hand. "Is this your first time at camp?"

For a moment, the other guy didn't react. He just stared at Quinn's hand like he wasn't sure what he was seeing. But then he blinked and he smiled; his eyes looked bluer when he smiled, more inviting.

When he took Quinn's hand, his grip was so cold. But his face was friendly, and Quinn smiled back.

"I'm Troy," the guy said. "Yeah, this is my first time."

He didn't even notice the little frisson of ice settling against his soul.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [swedishgoaliemafia](https://swedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.


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